Back in June, developer EXBO rebranded free-to-play open-world PvPvE extraction shooter STALCRAFT: X as STALZONE alongside a graphical upgrade, reworking of its starting missions and locations, PvP rebalancing, and other big changes. The overhaul was designed to allow new players smooth entry to a game that’s been going strong for years and is a unique combination of different genres.
While STALZONE is an extraction shooter, it doesn’t play like most other games in the genre. You don’t simply drop into one self-contained map for a session. It’s a persistent world where factions fight over territory and the balance of power can shift while you’re offline. And there are NPCs, quests, and dungeons like you’d find in an MMORPG.
It takes place in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which has been twisted by anomalies and overrun by mutants. You’ll use a detector to safely navigate the anomalies, and there are hidden caches and artifacts to find, constantly shifting weather, and global cataclysms like an energy emission that turns the sky red and can kill all living things.
The 50-hour story is told across two main campaigns, and the latest update added English voice acting. This is not an extraction shooter where you need to sift through item descriptions to decipher the world’s lore, it’s all laid out through the main story and the many side quests.
While STALZONE may have the quest design of an MMORPG, it doesn’t have the progression systems of one. You’re not going to gain experience points and gradually level up. Progression is built around acquiring and customizing new gear. There are more than 200 guns, which can be altered with a huge variety of attachments.
The primary way to acquire new gear is through trips into the Zone, but if you die before extracting your loot, you only lose what you gathered during that one trip. You don’t have to grind back from zero or risk losing your customized gear. So there’s still value to extracting and you can always keep progressing, but without the punishment for failure being too harsh.
You can also get new gear from other players either by trading with them directly or by using the auction house. You can buy and sell pretty much anything, and the player economy is expansive enough that you can get rich from buying and selling items at the right time to the right people.
When you take a trip into the Zone, global matchmaking will put you up against similarly geared opponents. Since there’s no leveling, there’s not a strict level matching system, but matchmaking will keep the gap between you and your opponents relatively small and EXBO’s in-house EXENS Anti-Cheat system keeps competition fair. That makes skill and positioning the most important factors in determining who walks away victorious.
STALZONE has remained consistently supported since its inception. EXBO is staffed with more than 400 employees, and they add updates every two weeks as well as regular seasonal events both big and small.
The rebrand in June marked the game’s biggest such update. In addition to the changes we already mentioned, it added new face models for characters that improved their emoting and lip syncing, introduced a light-source lighting system with better indoor lighting and more realistic-looking campfires and lamps, and added a new summer storyline.
STALZONE took part in The FPS Games Show today and unveiled its fall season content, which has transformed the Zone with autumn colors and began with a global cataclysm in the form of an electrical storm. The season also introduced the updated central location of the northern territories, Forge-11, and will soon continue with a major event dedicated to the cultist faction Covenant.
There’s a special invite code available now for readers of this article to help you get started. Just activate code IGNWELCOME in-game to get several goodies, including weapons, consumables, days of premium access, and season pass levels (detailed in the image below).
STALZONE is available to play for free right now on PC, through Steam, Epic Games Store, and directly through the game’s official website, where you can also learn more about the game. For the latest news and updates, you can follow it on Discord, Twitter, and YouTube.
